SqwidNet, the Internet of things (IoT) network operator launched as a partnership between Dark Fibre Africa and France-headquartered IoT specialist Sigfox, now covers 83% of South Africa’s population, it said on Tuesday.

It has reached 90% population coverage in municipal areas and 75% coverage of national highways and is working with about 30 service provider partners to deploy IoT solutions across industries.

The company’s CEO, Reshaad Sha, said it is working on a number of IoT projects that have entered commercial deployment, including air-quality monitoring around a waste management facility to detect gases such as hydrogen sulphide.

“The objective is to ensure that the facility is able to proactively take action when these gases start approaching levels that potentially impact the community around them,” SqwidNet said in a statement.

Another project is to detect intrusion at thousands of facilities across the country for a client. “Asset tracking, be it from a location perspective or associated asset usage, is a popular customer request resulting in the deployment of solutions today that are able to track both … valuable goods. Within the asset usage space, we have customers that have adopted solutions that allow them track and monitor driver behaviour, which then ties back closely to their own asset management plan and associated service delivery.”